This essay first appeared on Pacific Forum, and it is now republished with the writer’s permission.
The Lao Cai-Hanoi-Haiphong railway project, a 390.9-kilometer ( about 243-mile ) high-speed railway connecting northern Vietnam with southwest China, has been approved by the Vietnamese National Assembly.
The project is anticipated to be finished by 2030 and may give Vietnam a novel development momentum with an investment total of US$ 8.4 billion.
The Yunnan-Haiphong railway, which was abandoned during the French colonial era, connects Haiphong ( Vietnam ) and Yunnan ( China ), making up the railway.
The old rail, which spanned various types of surfaces, particularly through the hilly areas of the Vietnam-China border region, was established in 1901 and was regarded as an engineering marvel when it reached its peak in 1910, 855 km long, with the area in Vietnam being 390 kilometres long.
The railroad promoted industry and connectivity between southwest China and French Indochina in addition to boosting trade and exports of goods of European source.
However, China suspended this narrow-gauge railway in 2000 because it has become out-of-date ( 1, 000mm ). The Vietnamese-owned railroad continues to go on in good condition until Lao Cai, a frontier state with China, stops.
The new railway project uses a standard-gauge railway ( 1, 435mm ) and will be moving both for freight and for passengers at speeds of up to 160 km/h.
Dai Hegen, the president of China Railway Construction Corporation, confirmed last year that the initiative will support the discovery of the Belt and Road Initiative, aid Yunnan’s faster access to the sea, and promote socio-economic development in Vietnam’s northern border provinces.
The Belt and Road Initiative, spearheaded by Chinese President Xi Jinping, is at its height with the new rail project. The Lao Cai-Hanoi-Haiphong rail, which has been in operation since December 2021, may strengthen China’s ties to Southeast Asian nations.
China hopes to eventually build a larger rail, the Kunming-Singapore rail, to connect Southeast Asia with the primary route running through Laos, Thailand, and Malaysia to Singapore, as well as through Vietnam, Cambodia, and Myanmar.
In light of the world economy’s slow recovery following the Covid-19 crisis, the task serves as an example of Vietnam’s continued integration into the Chinese economy.
Under the direction of the fresh General Secretary To Lam, Vietnam is currently implementing its most ambitious administrative changes.
Ministers finalized their reform plans, including merger, reallocations, and reductions in useless works, in just a month, according to Dr. Nguyen Khac Giang, a visiting brother from the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute.
Communist Party of Vietnam head Lam , bitterly , before admitted that little room was left for development funding because nearly 70 % of the budget is spent on salaries and normal bills.
Due to factors like Vietnam’s, absence of incentives, energy shortages, and extreme government, Vietnam missed out on multi-billion buck investments last year from multinationals like Intel and LG Chem.
The deportation of significant international organizations from Vietnam has a significant impact on Vietnam’s goal of 8 % growth in 2025. The Taiwanese economy is in trouble because it is too dependent on companies.
Samsung contributed 16 % of Vietnam’s complete trade value in 2023, and this percentage has remained this degree despite the challenges of the global economy.
Evidently, eliminating the administrative structure by itself won’t completely solve the issue. Vietnam must therefore consider other development momentum, and strengthening its relationship with China might be a solution.
This strategy has the ability to help Vietnam reach its growth goals, but it may also have negative effects on the Asian economy.
First of all, Vietnam has a higher chance of falling entirely dependent on the Chinese market because it lacks strong foundations in countries like Taiwan, Thailand, South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan.
In fact, the majority of Taiwanese companies are poor, mostly dependent on running and assembling, not to mention various industries like retail trade and agriculture.
Second, if the China-US trade war persists, especially in the second term, Vietnam may be a” transit point for products exported to third places” like the US. In this situation, Vietnam is most likely to be affected by US business restrictions, which Vietnam itself has   predicted.
An example of a normal anti-dumping investigation involving Vietnam’s$ 5 billion treasure of metal is the US-led anti-dumping analysis in 2019. There are concerns that Asian businesses will be mishandled in such complicated cases as a result.
After Trump 2.0, the US government tightened international aid and concentrated more on the local market, making the decision to get closer to the Chinese economy can be seen as a life-or-death choice for the Asian economy.
This choice also aligns with Vietnam’s wood politics technique, which is to adjust to various circumstances and work with all parties to benefit from each other.
Social subordination is unavoidable because of economic dependence, though. Some poor nations are victims of China’s “debt capture politics,” including Pakistan, Kenya, Zambia, Laos, and Mongolia.
Given that, Vietnam is well known for its long record of opposition to Chinese effect, with the most recent conflict occurring in 1979. Vietnam and China’s connection is extremely complex and constantly evolving.
However, there is always anti-China mood in the nation, which helps to counteract the country’s propensity toward integration into China.
Vietnam may for the time being improve economic ties with local powerhouses like South Korea and Japan to combat its overreliance on China.
Given the presence and influence of South Korean and Japanese companies in the nation, since Japan and South Korea are the best ODA recipients to Vietnam, they could be instrumental in boosting the Asian market.
Buu Nguyen has a degree from the University of Maine at Presque Isle and is concerned about the shared growth of smaller nations in the Indo-Pacific area as well as international relations in East and Southeast Asia. Contact information for the author can be sent to [email protected].